Russia released footage of “the destruction of the British Challenger 2 tank by a drone within its borders”

Russia claims to have destroyed a British Challenger 2 tank operating within its borders, as military bloggers trumpeted attempts by Moscow forces to repel Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk.

Footage released by Telegram channel Milblogging Troika showed the FPV drone flying into British armor sticking out of the bushes.

There was no immediate evidence of an explosion, but the Challenger 2, which was operated by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region, was destroyed by the Russian 155th Marine Brigade under the turret at a “main weak point,” according to Russian reports.

“The very fact of his transfer of the Armed Forces to the reserve in the Kursk region indicates the enemy’s intention to hold the occupied frontiers in our region at any cost,” says the Telegram channel Two Majors, the repost of which was transmitted by the military channel Rybar.

“The enemy is throwing fresh reserves, NATO armored vehicles into battle and putting up a furious resistance,” the military blog channel concluded.

Russia claims to have destroyed at least one more Challenger 2 tank supplied to Ukraine by Great Britain.

It is believed that the doomed Challenger 2 tank was in service with the 82nd Airborne Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces.

Its destruction in Kursk comes as Russia is massing some 50,000 troops in preparation for a major operation to push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region, whose presence is seen as humiliating for Vladimir Putin.

The force likely includes about 10,000 North Korean troops recruited by Putin.

Kyiv troops remain in control of hundreds of square miles of the Kursk region near the Ukrainian border.

Elsewhere, Russian troops are said to have reached the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk, but each side denied the other’s claims of fighting there.

Russian media bloggers claimed that armored vehicles entered the north-eastern city and began to seize the territory.

“At night, from the direction of Kupyansk, enemy resources reported the entry of our troops into Kupyansk, which means the beginning of the battle for the city. According to the enemy’s estimates, two columns of Russian vehicles advanced from the Limanu Persho area to Kupiansk.

“They managed to enter the city and disembark the troops, who were scattered among the houses in the area of ​​Svatovska Street.”

But this morning, the Ukrainian military said that its forces were in full control of Kupyansk and that their forces had stopped the Russian advance on the railway junction.

“The alleged presence of Russian troops in the city of Kupyansk does not correspond to reality,” wrote the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Telegram messenger.

Earlier, a Russian official said Moscow’s forces were entrenched on the outskirts of the city more than 2-1/2 years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Kupyansk was captured by Moscow forces in the early days of their invasion in February 2022 and retaken by Ukrainian forces in a swift counteroffensive a few months later.

According to the Chief of Defense Staff of Great Britain, during October, Russian forces suffered an average of about 1,500 killed and wounded in Ukraine per day.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin told the BBC that the Russian people had paid an “extraordinary price” for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, noting that October was the worst month for casualties since the conflict began in February 2022.

“Russia is about to suffer 700,000 people killed or injured — that’s an enormous amount of pain and suffering that the Russian nation is forced to bear because of Putin’s ambitions,” he said on Sunday With Laura Kuensberg.

He said that while Russia is making gains and putting pressure on Ukraine, the losses are in “tiny increments of land.”

War spending, which he estimates is more than 40 percent of government spending on defense and security, is also a “huge expense” for Russia.

As the election of US President-elect Donald Trump casts doubt on US support for Ukraine, Sir Tony said Western allies would support them “as long as it takes”.

“This is a message that President Putin should take, and this is a reassurance for President Zelensky,” he said.

Writing in The Sunday Times, Sir Tony said the growing threat from authoritarian powers including Russia, North Korea and the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in Yemen was putting the international community “under enormous strain”.

“This is a new era of competition and struggle that will last for decades and has the potential to be more disruptive to our economy and our security than anything Britain has experienced in our time,” he wrote.

It comes just two weeks after NATO leadership said Putin had lost more than 600,000 troops in Ukraine, leaving him increasingly reliant on outside support for his invasion.

The General Secretary of the military bloc, Mark Rutte, said that due to heavy losses, North Korean troops were transferred to the Kursk region of Russia.